Tortured Soul
by Disgruntled Peony
Summary: The title's kind of self-explanatory, lol... A possible future for Darien, and trust me, it's not pretty.
1. Tortured Soul

Title: Tortured Soul

Author: liz_Z

E-mail: liz_Z@secret-agent.com

Category: Angst

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Enemy of my Enemy, The New Stuff

Season/Sequel info: Takes place after the 2nd season

Disclaimer: I don't own 'The Invisible Man'- in fact, I don't own much of anything.  I'm just playing around until the show gets renewed and all my theories on what could happen after the end of season two are totally shot down.  So get off my back and stop making me write these stupid disclaimers!

Author's notes: Yo peoples, prepare for another depressing Darien angst-fest!  I know I write way too many of these kinds of stories, but I think it helps me work off some of my negative energy.  ;)

You know what?  I like my padded room.  It has all the perks- padded walls, padded floor, one-way mirror, and of course, the quintessential straightjacket.  I love straightjackets.  The feel of the rough canvas brushing my skin, the fact that I can make only restricted movements... it's heaven.

At least, it's heaven compared to when I'm free.

When I'm free, I'm dangerous.  I've learned that.  I can't keep myself from hurting anyone, and no matter how sorry I do or don't feel about it later, I can't prevent it from happening again.  That's pure hell.  So therefore, the padded room must be heaven, because it's safe.  Safe for me, and safer for everyone else.  When I'm in here, I can't hurt anybody.  And I don't like hurting people.

I can't help it, though.  When I lose my temper now, I can't keep myself from doing things, saying things, feeling things.  I know I'll regret them later of course and beg for an apology, but the fact remains that when I'm angry I'm dangerous.  And I get angry a lot quicker these days.

It's all Arnaud's fault, of course.  I mean, if it wasn't for him, I would've had the gland out of my head years ago, Kevin would still be alive, and I'd be free to do whatever I pleased.  But that lovely thing he created called quicksilver madness has screwed me over yet again.

Oh, sure, the gene therapy worked, it worked just great.  I was free of the madness forever, or so I thought.  So everyone thought.  But of course, we were only half-right.  I was great for the first couple of weeks.  In fact, I'd never felt better in my life.  But after that, things started to go downhill.

I started feeling kinda down.  Not for any particular reason, I just didn't feel as happy as I had.  At first I thought it was just the excitement of not needing the counteragent anymore wearing off.  But it kept getting worse and worse, and people started to notice.

Hobbes was the first one to realize something was seriously wrong.  He had to save my butt twice in two days when I wasn't paying attention and let the quicksilver fall too soon.  I didn't do it on purpose, of course, but it still made him realize that something was going on.  After the second incident of premature visibility, he dragged me straight down to the Keep.

Claire ran all the tests she could think of, trying to figure out if something was wrong with the gland or if it was just me.  She couldn't find anything seriously wrong though, so she suggested that I take it easy for a couple of days, take my mind off work or something.  I went home early that afternoon and plopped down in front of the TV.  Two hours later I was trying to convince myself not to slit my own wrists.

I called Hobbes, and he made it to my apartment just in time to keep me from slicing open a jugular.  Then he dragged me down to the Keep for the second time, hollering at Claire that something was seriously wrong with me and she needed to do something, stat!

At that point I stopped feeling suicidal- or rather, I was still suicidal, but I was too busy being angry at Hobbes for saving my life to notice.  I started yelling at him, hitting him even.  Claire described it later as being disturbingly similar to the sort of temper tantrum you'd expect from a two-year-old.

I kept getting more and more violent, and eventually Claire had to sedate me because that was the only way she could think of to calm me down.  I spent the next two days in a barely-conscious haze, staring up at the ceiling of Lab 3 and trying to remember why I couldn't move my arms or legs.  Turns out they'd strapped me down to a gurney, so I couldn't hurt myself if I had another violent outburst or suicidal spell.

Eventually Claire realized that I was suffering from withdrawal.  Or, to be more precise, the gland was suffering from withdrawal.  It had become so dependant on the quicksilver madness, and the counteragent, that it was deteriorating without them.  The gland was starting to malfunction, and the malfunctions were affecting my brain.

Claire did everything she could to help, but by the time she'd solved the problem there was already too much damage done, both to the gland, and to me.  The gland was little more than a piece of useless tissue, and me... well, let's just say that every day I go through something eerily close to quicksilver madness, only I have a conscience to tear into me afterwards.  I can't stop myself from doing the things I do, no matter how much I want to, and sometimes I wish I could just kill myself so I'd be kept from hurting people...

Hobbes walks with a limp now because of me.  Claire has a scar running up the length of her left arm thanks to me.  I gave Alex a couple of black eyes; she gave me a scar on my chin.  I haven't hurt Eberts yet, but sooner or later something's bound to happen to him.  And, once again thanks to me, the Official is paralyzed from the waist down.

I don't let anyone visit me anymore.  How could I?  It's not safe for them.  But even though I won't let them come in, sometimes they'll sit in the observation room and talk to me through the speakers.  Hobbes comes by every day like clockwork; Claire drops by a lot, too.  Eberts will pop in every once in a while when he doesn't have too much filing to do.  Alex even came over to talk a couple of times.  The Official doesn't come at all, but after our last run-in with each other I don't blame him.  No one likes being reminded of when they came within an inch of dying.

I haven't actually killed anyone yet, but it's only a matter of time.  Sooner or later, it's bound to happen, and when it does I'll probably ask Hobbes to shoot me.  If he isn't the one I end up killing, that is.

The strangest thing is, I feel perfectly sane most of the time.  Even when I'm acting completely crazy, I feel normal.  It's only afterwards that I can tell I wasn't thinking clearly.  After I've given people the bite-marks and broken bones.  Of course, it's always easier to see that sort of stuff when you're looking back on what you've already done.  It's not nearly so easy to tell when you're actually doing it.  And even when I can tell, I can't do anything about it.

This is worse than being quicksilver mad, a hundred times worse.  Because now it happens all the time, and there's no way to fix it.  If only the gland was still functional the Official would've ordered it removed, I'd be dead, and the gland would have been passed on to some other poor fool who would very likely end up in a padded room too.  But as it is I'm probably going to die of old age, completely nutso.  Just what I always wanted...

Why, Kevin?  Why me?  You should've left me in prison.  You should've let me die.  You've sent me to hell and I can't even blame you, because it wasn't really your fault.  And Arnaud's probably never going to pay; I can pretty much guarantee that he'll probably end up retiring in his old age with a condo in the Bahamas and some twenty-something year old blonde chick dangling from his arm.  One thing I've learned over the past few years, life is nothing like the story books.  The good guys get to lead sorry, miserable, painful lives. The bad guys get beach-houses in Hawaii.

I can't live like this.  'Course, I can't kill myself either.  So I'll just have to settle for existing.  That's not really living, of course.  I'll probably never live again, thanks to the piece of crap gland that killed my brain.

I hate myself when I'm like this.  But I'm always like this, so I guess I just hate myself, period.  I hate this straightjacket.  I hate the one-way mirror.  I hate my padded cell.  I hope I never leave.

The End


	2. About 'Tortured Soul'

Just thought I should drop by a few extra notes to explain this thing, since the story was so depressing, etcetera.

First off, yes, it is a grim outlook, and I have written similarly grim stories in the past.  Does this mean I think Darien will come to a bad end?  Absolutely not!  I firmly believe that Darien will get the gland out of his head, find the girl that's right for him, and walk off with her into the sunset.  I also firmly believe that Hobbes will get together with Claire, but that's just my opinion...  ;)

I have written at least one possible ending for the show in the past that actually came out happily (it's called 'The End of This Road', and yes, it may look kind of grim at the start, but that's just because nothing in this world is easy, and happy endings are definitely one of the more difficult things to find nowadays).

Secondly, as to why this story is so depressing, I actually wrote it about a month ago just before the I-maniCon, when I had just finished coming through a very... interesting Real Life experience.  I knew it was rather disturbing even as I wrote it, and I scrapped it immediately after finishing it, to tell you the truth.  But recently a very good friend of mine convinced me to dig it out of the archives and let her read it, and then she pressured me into posting it.  *waves at Naomi*  Thanks (I think)!  ;)

I hope you all enjoyed the story.  If you like, I can pass out the anti-depressants now...

liz_Z


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